He will be the starting second baseman if Freddy Sanchez, still unable to throw at 100 percent because of offseason shoulder surgery, is not ready.
Rivas is just awful and I don't want him in the starting lineup, period. He was kind of the Twins' equivalent of Jose Castillo - he showed some potential very early in his career, then spent years disappointing everyone. His statistics in Class AAA in 2006 and 2007 suggest he hasn't learned anything and may in fact have gotten worse. Let's hope Sanchez gets better very soon.
The cuts are unsurprising. When Dessens was signed to a minor league deal, there was some speculation that he had a good shot at making the team, but we've heard little about him since then. Fossum and Bayliss were unlikely to make the team in any case, and Bayliss' move off the 40-man roster was probably overdue.
The Thompson cut suggests that both Nate McLouth and Nyjer Morgan are going to make the team, which the Pirates had been hinting would happen. In a scenario where the lefty McLouth won the starting job, Thompson might have been useful as a right-handed bench bat, and if I were GM, I probably would've sent Morgan to the minors and kept Thompson. But it's not a big deal and I'm mostly just as happy to keep Morgan, as long as he doesn't start.